> In 'Warist, Werstine und Werstein' Kuhn tries to show that
> many Germanic names in ending in
> -stein/-steen/-sta:n/-sten are reinterpretations of pre-
> and non-Germanic names in ending in -st-, and that this is
> shown in the sets of matching -st/-stein etc of personal
> names, etnonyms and toponyms:

> "

[...]

> To corrobsorate this I have to digress shortly into the
> history of personal names with st-suffix. On the continent
> they enjoyed more importance than the ones on -stein. In
> the North, however, where these latter were rather
> frequent, the former are not documented, and also in
> England there are only a few tangible ones. Without
> support in the genuine vocabulary seem only Ribrost and
> Unust, but those two might have been Celts. The well-known
> Hengest is a native appellative and only semi-legendary.
> To my knowledge there remains only Leofusta, which might
> or should be understood as superlative to leof "dear", and
> Fregist/Frigist which seems to contain OE gist "guest",
> although this is very rare in the old English personal
> names. Among the few -gist names I noticed there are
> Friþe-/Fryþe-gist which could be reshaped from Frigist,
> and Ere-gist, with a completely isolated first element.

The name appears in DB as <Friguist>, <Fredgist>, and
<Fregist>, in Lancs., Yorks., and Northants. It appears to
be a borrowing of ON *<Friðgestr>, ODan <Fredegæst>; while
<Friðgestr> isn't recorded in OWN sources, several other
names in <-gestr> are. The late <Fred-> spellings are
influenced by WFrank. names in <Fred(e)->, doubtless
including <Fredegis>. <Eregist> and <Erithegistus> are
apparently just errors for <Fregist> and <Frithegistus>.

Brian

Brian M. Scott

... Harrison & Harrison, _Surnames of the United Kingdom_, is not authoritative. It is in fact somewhat notorious for etymologizing on the modern forms of

Message 149 of 149
, Oct 19, 2010

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At 9:00:13 AM on Tuesday, October 19, 2010, Torsten wrote:

> I don't want to open this thread again; I'm adding this
> posting to the tree since I found an authoritative quote
> on the subject, and I'd like to be able to locate that
> quote in the future.

Harrison & Harrison, _Surnames of the United Kingdom_, is
not authoritative. It is in fact somewhat notorious for
etymologizing on the modern forms of surnames, and this
entry is an example. <Pendegast> is from <Prendergast>, the
name of a village and parish in Pembrokeshire and, as
<Prenderguest>, of what is now a farm in Berwickshire; early
instances of the byname include <de Prendergat'> 1225, <de
Prendrogest> 1354, <de Prendergest> ~1170, ~1240, 1325, and
<de Prendregast> 1296. The Scottish place-name is
associated at an early date with an Anglo-Norman family who
may have brought it from Wales. The etymology is unknown,
but the name is apparently P-Celtic, and the first element
may be <pren> 'tree'.

Brian

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